Lexington cat missing a year counts his lives

LEXINGTON, Mass. -- A cat is counting his lives as his family celebrates.

He disappeared a year ago, but a tiny chip under his skin has led to a happy reunion.

Sparky was just seven months old when he ran away. He had been on the run for a year, but now, this feline has been found.

Until recently, Sparky's owner Addie Mathews didn't think she would ever see him again.

“We put up posters, and we asked the neighbors to keep an eye out for him, and nothing came up,” Mathews said.

Sparky was only seven months old when he disappeared, but a call came recently that the feline had been found... all thanks to technology.

“Somebody had found him in a bank-owned home in Mattapan, so like all of our cats and dogs, we scanned him for microchip using a scanner like this,” said Jesse Lane of the MSPCA.

When Sparky's microchip number came up on the scanner, employees at the MSPCA contacted the microchip company to learn who the cat belonged to.

“I was in shock, I was like oh my gosh, I can't believe it's really him,” Mathews said.

Now, Sparky has sparked talks about how important microchips really are.

“No collar, no ID tag, he was found in a very common area where a lot of stray cats and dogs are found in so if he wasn't microchipped, we probably wouldn't have known who his owners were,” Lane said.

A happy ending made possible because this owner made sure her favorite feline always had an ID.

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